500 Startups Accelerator Announces Its Ninth Batch Of Companies And Two New EIRs

The keeps rolling along. Now about two years old, the program is already on its ninth batch of participating companies. It’s also added a couple of entrepreneurs-in-residence to help out with the startups that have signed up.

Last year, 500 Startups announced that it was “accelerating” the pace of the program and running it year-round, with two batches in Mountain View, Calif. and two in a new San Francisco office. This will be the first batch to be run out of San Francisco.

This year’s group of companies follow a lot of trends that 500 is known for — in particular, accepting a number of non-valley participants and female founders. The batch includes startups from the Czech Republic, Switzerland, China, India, Canada, Malaysia, Brazil, Australia, Mexico, and the U.K. There are also 11 startups with female founders participating this time around.

In addition, this group features a number of companies focused on cryptocurrencies or related financial services. That’s thanks in part to the addition of Sean Percival to the 500 staff a few months ago, who also will be heading up the accelerator this time around.

The firm is also launching an AngelList syndicate to invest in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency-related startups. That will be its third syndicate, following the introduction of the 500 Startups Syndicate and 500 Women Syndicate.

Along with the new batch, 500 Startups has also signed on two EIRs to help out. They are Poornima Vijayashanker, who was a founding engineer at Mint.com and founder of fitness startup BizeeBee; and Malcolm Ong, who was a co-founder of SkillShare.

The 29 companies that are participating in the 500 Startups Accelerator include: